


Bend or Break

by Destina



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-18
Updated: 2009-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-05 20:52:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4194480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destina/pseuds/Destina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Takes place sometime around episode 5x05. </p>
<p>Posted to LJ in 2009; posted to AO3 in June 2015. Many thanks to dotfic for beta.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Bend or Break

**Author's Note:**

  * For [innie_darling (innie)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/gifts).



> Takes place sometime around episode 5x05. 
> 
> Posted to LJ in 2009; posted to AO3 in June 2015. Many thanks to dotfic for beta.

The dream comes almost every night now, though it changes like the seasons. Sometimes Dean's on the dock fishing alone, golden trees all around him and the line dangling in the water, and his eyes closed to ward off the warm summer sun. Sometimes Castiel is there, standing just behind his left shoulder, but more often it's Dad, sitting beside him and smiling. The trees are orange, gold, old copper, leaves in the lake, no one else around. 

Most of the time, though, it's Sammy, sitting next to him in a camp chair. The first few times, the lake was frozen, glazed over with white, whatever warmth used to be there hiding beneath the thick ice. Bare trees, cold branches, and Sam watched him with sad eyes. These last two times, though, Dean noticed green leaves on the trees and a basket between them, filled with fish. Sam's not watching him anymore, and that means Dean doesn't have to watch Sam, either. 

Those images are in the back of his mind when Dean pulls off the road somewhere in southern Indiana. Sam's asleep in the passenger seat, and for many miles, the view flashing by beyond his head where it rests on the window has been nothing but the grey-brown blur of silver silos and dusty fields. Dean steers the car down a winding side road into a thicket of trees and kills the engine. 

No doubt, his baby needs work. Over the years, Dean's become attuned to every rattle, every vibration she might make. Ever since his dad gave her to him, warning him never to neglect her, he's been feeling the changes in her as age and rust sought to undo all his careful maintenance. During this last job, he started to sense the subtle wobble of the accelerator beneath the ball of his foot, the slight tremor through her body as he eased the pedal down. 

She's shaky, and it's his fault, really. He's been distracted by other things, big things he has to keep an eye on. The sad irony is, Sam probably took better care of her the three months Dean was dead than Dean has in the year since. 

Easy to remember when she was his top priority, but then, she hasn't been for a while. He's lost track of the number of broken lights, the times he's had to coax her back to life, rebuild her. 

The engine needs to cool, and Sam needs the sleep, so Dean slides out from behind the wheel and pulls the cooler out. Plenty of beer; they stocked up at the convenience store beside the motel, each of them picking out the kinds the other likes and then rolling their eyes at each other like a couple of girls caught passing mash notes. There are Twinkies, too, which Dean has found after much experimentation are the perfect accompaniment to beer with a side of beef jerky. 

He pops the cap on a cold one and tugs the cooler to the side of the car, where he can still see Sammy drooling on himself. Back to the wheel well, he takes a long slow swallow and looks up at the trees all around them, a wall of green shielding them from the highway beyond. He tips his head back and looks up at the treetops swaying in the breeze, long slow motions against the clouds. Kind of pretty.

Flash of memory, dredged up from a set of experiences he hadn't thought about in years: the shithole Dad rented in Wisconsin when Sammy was five, and the giant tree in the front yard. Weird, how vividly he remembers that oak tree. The thing was taller than their crumbling house, and it was old and patient-looking, like it didn't mind the weather or the snow, or the neighborhood kids climbing all over it, leaving grooves along the sides. 

Not that Dean was one of those kids. Dean never had time for tree-climbing. Most of the time he was looking after Sam. Besides, Dad discouraged it. Trees weren't for climbing, they were for target practice. Over the years, Dean put his share of holes in a hundred conveniently placed targets all over the country. 

He grew up thinking of trees as obstacles between him and whatever he was chasing, or habitats for evil things - wood sprites, tree witches, that kind of thing. 

So, tree climbing, not on the list of things Dean kicked ass at, as a kid. He's never really been fishing, either, not for fun. Just when his dad taught him, and then only once for necessity's sake, when they were hungry and near a convenient creek. Sam was the better fisherman; Dean caught nothing, but Sam reeled in dinner. 

Funny how until just that moment, Dean forgot Sam was even with them that day. 

Dean eyes the nearest big tree. It seems sturdy. He glances back over his shoulder; Sam is snoring softly, his nose drooping down somewhere around his chest as his head falls further forward. Dean snickers softly. When Sam was a kid, he used to sleep curled up in a ball, as if all his parts wanted to be closer together. Those parts are just more distant from the center now, but apparently they still home in on each other. 

"Iron Giant," Dean says softly, though Sam probably wouldn't appreciate the joke. 

He chugs down the beer, and another in quick succession, and then stands. He wipes his hands on his jeans and moves a step or two closer to the tree, looks up into it. Long, sturdy branches. Big enough to hold an eight year old for sure, but maybe not a thirty year old. 

All his childhood scars are gone, now. All the early wounds, the ones gained by learning and making mistakes, glossed over on this not-so-new body, but the memories are still there. Still, he misses the living record. 

He shrugs off his jacket and overshirt, and automatically reaches to stuff his amulet down under his collar so it won't swing up and hit him in the face, but it isn't there. He forgets, perpetually, that it isn't there, because it's a part of him. There, even when it isn't. He sighs. Eventually, he's going to beat Castiel until he gives it up. 

"Or not," he mutters, and shakes out his arms, rolls his shoulders a couple times. 

He grabs the lowest limb on his first jump. Victory. He swings his legs up, gets them around the branch, and hauls himself up. Pieces of bark fly into his face, and his hands complain at the rough treatment, circling the old rough branch too fast. Dean grimaces, but scoots along until he's able to sit comfortably on the thick end of the branch, closest to the trunk. 

Not too high, yet. Sam's squishy head isn't that far away. Leaves tickle his face. Dean leans back and grins. 

With caution, he gets his feet under him and reaches up. The next two branches are easy, though he tests his weight on them first while clinging to the trunk. "You can do it, you big pussy," he says, through clenched teeth, and so he makes it up two more levels, hugging the tree like a teddy bear. 

Another long-forgotten glimpse of the past pops into his head: Sam, carrying around his teddy bear by the neck for so long that the threads had weakened and its head fell off while Sammy shrieked hysterically. Dean had laughed so hard, he'd cried. Then he'd stapled the head back on and given it back to Sam, who had given the bear mouth to mouth and pronounced it well again while Dean snickered into his sleeve. 

Dean slides down the tree, placing his hands and feet with care, and sits on the branch, which creaks. He gets one leg on either side and his hands on the branch for balance, and looks out from behind the canopy of leaves. The whispering rush of wind through the branches sways the leaves, peaceful and unhurried, enclosing Dean there in a private space. Trees and more trees, in every direction. With a deep breath, Dean relaxes and closes his eyes. 

The branch chooses that moment to crack beneath him. 

When he hits the ground, he's laughing. It wasn't a hard fall, though he's going to be feeling it for a few days. The car door swings open and Sam shouts, "Dean!" and then a second later, his brother is kneeling beside him, probing at him. Dean swats at him, still snickering, and the look on Sam's face goes from semi-hysterical terror to full-on aggravated. "The hell were you doing?"

"Climbing a tree, what does it look like?" Dean grins up at him, and belatedly hopes there's no blood on his face or anything, because that would totally spoil the image. He wipes a thumb over his lips and teeth and licks his lips. No blood. Excellent. 

A thousand things cross Sam's expression, none of them good. "There's a reason kids do it and adults don't, Dean," is all he says, but Sam's fingers are roaming around on Dean's head, as if able to find Dean's likely skull fracture and concussion by worried touch alone. 

"Yeah, well, I'm a late bloomer." Dean chuckles, even as Sam slips his fingers under Dean's head, presumably checking to make sure his neck isn't broken. "Uh, I think I broke the tree, Sammy." 

"Just so long as it didn't break you." 

"No way." He plants a hand on the ground and sits up slowly, and doesn't even protest that Sam helps. Once he's upright, he shoves Sam away. "Good times." 

"Seriously, Dean? Are you sure you weren't brain damaged _before_ you went up there? Because the last time I checked, a three-inch branch won't hold two hundred pounds." 

Dean rolls his eyes. "Keep clucking, mother hen." 

Sam hauls him to his feet easily without much help from Dean, which Dean stoically ignores. He waits until Dean has brushed himself off before waving a hand of dismissal at him and going back to the car. 

Dean pats himself down. "Good news! No tree limbs embedded in my flesh!"

"I can fix that if you want," Sam calls out from behind the raised trunk lid. 

"Shut up," Dean says pleasantly. He limps over to the cooler, only because Sam can't see him limping, and surreptitiously pushes the empty bottles under the car with the toe of his boot. Then he fishes out two more beers, pops the caps, and sits down. 

Sam takes his bottle from Dean's hand, then goes to the front of the car. He lifts the hood, props it open, and drops the tool bag beside his foot. 

Dean sits with his back against the tire and sips his beer, listening to the confident ratcheting and clacking of metal on metal that tells him Sam isn't shy about working the guts of the car anymore. Good sounds, right and normal, now. "Don't scratch the paint," he says, smiling when Sam huffs out a deeply annoyed sigh.

His broken tree waves its remaining branches, passing filtered light over them like water, and Dean can tell it has already forgiven him. 

 

end  
**


End file.
